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Exploring Historical Fire Regimes with LANDFIRE data

Curious about the historical fire regimes and to practice using parameterized reports in R, I put together this simple dashboard using US Forest Service admin boundaries (https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php?dsetCategory=boundaries) and LANDFIRE’s Biophysical Settings Data (https://landfire.gov/vegetation/bps).

A few fun facts emerged:

• There was an average of over 750,000 acres of fire each year prior to European Colonization within the forests of Region 9
• Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie had the most fire with over 143,000 acres per year
• The forests dominated by northern hardwoods, such as the Ottawa had fire as well (~6,000ac), though less than those to the south.

Click on the forest to get a link to a custom report

Map of historical Mean Fire Return Invervals made with LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings data (https://landfire.gov/vegetation/bps).